This invention relates to a playing card coded on its identifying face in a manner such that an electronic device can identify the card and indicate to a person dealing the cards where each card is to be dealt. As one skilled in the art will readily appreciate, coding a deck of playing cards, each with a code, for example a "bar code", by which each card is uniquely identified, is a routine task. However, using a device to deal a deck of cards so that a preselected "hand" stored in the memory of the device, is dealt to each player, and to do so in an error-free, repetitive manner, is not a simple problem. Numerous playing card distributing devices have been proposed in the prior art, but each is prey to at least one technical problem, and none is economical enough to be used by the general public.
For example, a common characteristic of coded playing cards coded as suggested in the prior art, is that the bar code is marked so that it can be seen by the human eye and read by light in the range of visible wavelength. To read such bar codes it was necessary not to overprint the face markings of the playing cards. Therefore the cards were marked on the side edges. Our invention uses an essentially invisible bar code which can be read by an electro-optical reading means which uses light in the infrared or ultra-violet region, as described in greater detail hereinbelow. Thus, for the first time, we have now been able to provide a playing card which can be marked all over its surface, if so desired, without visibly defacing the card. The unexpected result of being able to code a card essentially invisibly is that the card may be over-printed with the code repetitively, thus enabling the card to be read in any generally lateral orientation whatsoever.
The matter of economics is of particular importance because the game of Contract Bridge is played by a large segment of the population of the world, and it is essential that a device, such as the one of our invention, be affordable if a player is to practice playing preselected hands, wishes to teach himself how to play the game more astutely, or participate in the game of Duplicate Bridge.
Duplicate Bridge is played in essentially the same manner all over the world as a test of skill in a game in which the same deal is played more than once at different tables. Thus it becomes important that many decks of cards be dealt in preselected sets of 13 cards each to each set of competitors.
It will now be evident that the apparatus and coding system of this invention can also be used to deal hands in the game of poker, or any other card game in which specific cards are to be dealt to a specified location according to directions provided by the memory of the device.
The device is particularly useful as a teaching device because a "chip" can be provided with "teaching hands", and the level of the game being taught can be tailored to the expertise of the learner by simply replacing one chip with another.
Further details for playing the game of Duplicate Bridge, or any other card game where a deck of cards is to be dealt in a prescribed manner, are not of particular importance here. The thrust of this invention is that it provides a device for manually dealing a deck of cards, or any portion thereof, in a preselected manner, by simply sliding each card, face down, across a surface in which electro-optical reading means to identify the card, and means to match the identification of the card with an instruction in the device's memory, result in a signal being given to the dealer as to where (which location) that card is to be dealt.
The foregoing purposes of an apparatus for dealing coded playing cards each coded according to a "bar code" coding system, are fulfilled by a device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,562 to Cuff et al. (class 273/subclass 149P). However, the device has the drawback of requiring an opening in the housing for introducing a playing card into the apparatus, and a guide means to guide the card past the electro-optical reading means. The sides of an opening in the housing, or those of a guide means, if either is provided, touch and scuff the sides of cards as they are passed through, thus damaging them. Neither an opening in the housing, nor a guide means is therefore desirable, but neither can be avoided in devices of the prior art if the card is to be identified by the electro-optical reading means.
Our device uses neither an opening in the housing, nor a guide means.